5 things to watch at Obama presser

HOUSTON — President Barack Obama’s news conference Friday gives him an opportunity, if he so chooses, to single-handedly calm heightened fears of oil shortages and high gasoline prices that have escalated along with political unrest in the Middle East in recent weeks.

Obama must also defend against new attacks from Republicans, who see rising oil and gasoline prices as a potent political weapon against White House energy policies.

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With gas prices projected to keep going up, Obama is looking to get in front of the issue in way he was unable to do during his presidential campaign in 2008 and the BP oil spill in 2010.

The news conference will focus on energy, but Obama will undoubtedly discuss the human and economic toll from the earthquake in Japan as well as the tensions in Libya and perhaps those that have begun to spark in Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest producer of crude oil.

While the loss of oil production from Libya can be more than made up for by spare capacity in Saudi Arabia, any dents in Saudi production could be economically devastating to a U.S. population still trying to recover from the economic recession. As it happens, major demonstrations are scheduled for Friday in Saudi Arabia.

Here are five things to watch for:

Stability in the Middle East?

Middle East and energy price experts have said a statement from Obama reflecting the relative stability in the global production of crude oil could calm fears and at least minimize future price spikes.

Ryan Crocker, former ambassador to Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations, told POLITICO that if the mass protests in Saudi Arabia are not as dramatic as some fear, that the White House could issue a statement “that everybody take a deep breath, calm down, do not succumb to hysteria, and let’s see how things develop.”

Doing so, Crocker said, “would be hugely reassuring to the markets, hugely reassuring to our friends in the region. And then you can have a quiet dialogue about the need for reforms and so forth.”

Guy Caruso, who headed the Energy Information Administration under President George W. Bush, said Obama could also send a message to financial market speculators that they might get stuck buying oil at a high price if the unrest softens. It’s a key and calming message to send, he said, “ ’cause you have financial investors out there who see this as an opportunity to go long and if it persists, it gets worse, then they make some money. They may not see any downside risk to buying oil.”

Rampant oil speculation was one of the drivers behind the run-up in oil and gasoline prices in 2008, which only ceased because of the economic recession.

Drill, baby, drill?

Republicans, from House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to freshman backbenchers, have stepped up attacks on the administration this week regarding oil and gas prices.

GOP lawmakers are also using high oil prices to attack administration clean energy and climate change policies — like those of the EPA — that have no short-term direct impact on the price of gasoline.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings said he’ll push bills to kick-start the Interior Department’s lease permitting of offshore oil and gas development. Four full committee hearings and a field hearing in the Gulf of Mexico region are planned for this month.

Obama has the chance in front of a national audience to defend the pace of the Interior Department’s permitting of oil and gas drilling projects since last year’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill and other actions the administration is taking to shore up production under the guise of tougher safety and oversight requirements.